Smart insights: Technology

If you want to attract today's connected consumers, it's essential to embrace technology and to understand consumers' use of technology.

It is impossible to identify opportunities or design superior consumer experiences that secure loyal, returning customers unless you have accurate understanding of your customers' current experiences, unmet needs, evolving choices and future expectations.

Our technology market research experts give you this information.

We deliver market and consumer insights that help you create engaging and relevant concept designs, product positioning, advertising and customer experiences. And our key performance indicators for brand, proposition development and user experience keep you focused on the actions that will deliver the strongest business results.

Whatever specialist technology sector you operate in, we provide insights on market performance, consumer research and trends at both global and local level: IT and IT B2B, consumer electronics (CE), photo, office equipment, home appliances (MDA), telecommunications hardware and telecoms service providers.

Today, sales management is increasingly driven by promotions, product launches and seasonal sales activities. With shortening product life cycles and volatile consumer behavior, you must maximize sales during these key “moments of truth”. What does it take to succeed? Most importantly, you need to know what’s happening at the point-of-sale.
Tech manufacturers have been basing their strategic decisions on GfK’s POS Tracking for decades. But tactical sales management is different. To stay competitive and meet targets, sales, marketing and product teams need more frequent insights into sell-out performance to spot and act on opportunities and weaknesses. With the addition of our mobile app, weekly data will be an early warning system anywhere, anytime.

What difference can weekly POS data make for the business?

Let’s take a look at weekly POS in action.

1. Deep dive into sales week by week

With our monthly reporting you know what was sold, which channels performed best, how the competition is doing, and the bestsellers. However, by detecting under- and over-performing areas across all channels on a weekly basis, sales managers can take immediate corrective action to improve the efficiency of the salesforce or distribution network and negotiate with high-potential retailers.

2. Track price developments efficiently

Monthly average prices can be helpful when creating a pricing strategy, but of course prices fluctuate during a month. Tactical pricing decisions need continuous attention. How much will consumers pay for a product? Am I selling at the right price? Is my competitor’s pricing better than mine? Crucially, Pricing and Product Managers need to understand the maximum price achievable for a product depending on the stage in its lifecycle. Weekly sell-out data brings valuable insight into pricing decisions on sales performance.

3. Maximize the impact of marketing campaigns

Sales and Marketing Managers need to optimize their trade marketing spend. Regardless of the activity – price or in-store sales promotions, or advertising displays – they need granular insights on sales uplift versus budget invested. Monthly data may show a sales increase in the respective month, but weekly POS provides detailed sales data to track the promotion’s impact shortly after the actual sales took place. More frequent reporting allows sales and marketing teams to maximize impact by acting fast, such as continuing promotional activity that delivers an uplift, or terminating a campaign that fails to deliver.

4. Optimize distribution during seasonal events

Black Friday, Cyber Monday, Christmas, Singles’ Day – special events dominate the retail calendar. Today, Black Friday is the most important sales peak for retailers outside China. While our monthly POS data will show that November was a very strong month, the weekly view will allow you compare Black Friday against Cyber Monday and analyze sales performance on channel level.

5. Monitor market acceptance during launch

Launches are the ultimate “moments of truth”. Whether you introduce a new product, feature or product line, you need rapid feedback on performance. Weekly POS data provides performance data to support adjustments to a launch strategy. It also provides objective sales KPIs to better negotiate with merchandising planners and buyers on the retail side.

Retailers and manufacturers are under pressure to develop products and services that maximize sales and profit and to keep customers coming back.

Success relies on having the most up-to-date sales data, combined with robust analysis to understand which products and services are performing well in the market – and which are not. With this information, clients can set clear strategies for commercial growth and increase return on investment.

Our geomarketing solutions and consultancy provide our clients with smart insights into location-specific factors that impact the success of business sites, shops, sales territories, target groups, as well as chain store and distribution networks.

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